Conor McGregor clashed with both Floyd Mayweather and Paulie Malignaggi in Las Vegas yesterday as they greeted hundreds of fans outside the T-Mobile Area.
A face-off between Mayweather and McGregor had been planned earlier in the day, but after it was cancelled the two fighters and their entourages bumped into each other anyway and that led to be a brief scuffle, though no punches were thrown.
“There was a face-off (planned), then there was no face-off, and then I saw him and said, ‘What, are you afraid of a face-off today?'” McGregor explained afterwards. “He didn’t say anything, but then the goons, the big goons that he surrounds himself with started pushing and shoving.
“And then it was just a pushing and shoving contest, and that was it. Nothing really happened. I didn’t hear what his response was. It just became a pushing and shoving match.”
McGregor also came face-to-face with Paulie Malignaggi for the first time since the former boxing champion walked out of his training camp recently in disgust at the way he’d been treated, and so there was no love lost between the two.
“Bring your ballls”, Malignaggi repeatedly yelled to his rival in reference to his fight this weekend, with McGregor responding, “Get over it. You got your a**e whooped.”
Getting back to the business at hand, Mayweather was confidently predicting that he would finish McGregor in the ring.
“The fight is not going the distance, no matter what he says. He’s getting knocked out,” Mayweather told the assembled media.
As you might expect, McGregor begged to differ.
“I believe I am going to knock him down in the first round because be sure I am going to start fast,” ‘The Notorious’ predicted.
“After that, maybe I will toy with him for two or three rounds and it’s possible the referee will have to step in and stop it. Come Saturday night, the king of the UFC will be the king of boxing as well.”
